Meanwhile, Faraday University.
Adhara and Ryze walks out of the room wearing their casual outfit,
Since Ryze has little to no clothes, he’s only wearing a black jacket and the only sneakers that he got while Adhara is wearing a black crop-top and cream-colored culotte pants.
The light makeup that she wore gives her a fresh feeling,
Even the students that are walking in the hallway stop for a second upon seeing Adhara, they’re all mesmerized by her but they instantly turn their heads away after realizing that it’s Adhara.
How can they look too long since Adhara is Rex’s girl,
Rex is the icon of their university since he’s the strongest student in all Awakened universities in Ratmawati City, and thus they didn’t really feel appropriate to stare at Adhara for too long.
“Are you ready?”, Adhara asks lightly.
Ryze who is holding Adhara’s arm meekly glance at her shyly before he nervously nodded his head, “Shouldn’t we ask Rex’s permission? I don’t want him to be mad”
“You don’t have to worry about that”, Adhara replied with a bright smile.
She then added while putting her hand on Ryze’s head with an assuring smile, “If Rex dares to be angry with you because of getting some fresh air, you tell me and I’ll beat him up”
Hearing this, Ryze chuckles before they both went to the lobby.
Arriving at the lobby, Adhara saw Edward and Zelene is already waiting in the lobby as they approaches them, “Where is your uncle?”
“He’s not coming, he rather stays in the room”, Edward replied.
Zelene looks at Adhara before she smiles, “Sister! I’m happy that we can spend some time together”, she said before her eyes fall onto Ryze who is peeking from Adhara’s back shyly, “Who is that sister? Is he your brother?”
Adhara pulls Ryze from her back before she said, “Something like that”
“Ryze come on, introduce yourself”, Adhara instructed as Ryze walks out of her back nervously.
Ryze looks at Zelene who is looking at him intently before his face reddened, he then looks down at the ground before he said, “Nice to meet you… My name is Ryze”
“I’m Zelene, Don’t be shy! We can be friends!”, Zelen said cheerfully.
After introducing themselves briefly, the four of them walk out of the university.
While walking side by side, Adhara leans closer to Edward and whispers, “Are we not going to invite Kyran to come with us? This can be considered a break after all”
“There’s no need for that”, Edward shakes his head.
He then continues, “I already asked around and some of the students saw him go inside Lisa’s room, he’s probably taking a break right now”
A moment later,
The four of them arrive at the only mall in sector 3E,
People are crowding this place as the four of them stride inside, and upon arriving inside both Ryze and Zelene widened their eyes as they gasp in shock.
The inside of the mall is very spacious with many kinds of stores around,
Looking at their expressions, Adhara and Edward chuckle since they look adorable with their mouths agape while looking left and right excitedly.
Adhara looks around before she said, “Let’s eat first, you guys must be hungry”
The four of them spent hours inside the mall trying to erase their pent-up emotions from the events that are happening to them, think of this as a momentary escape from reality.
Since Zelene and Ryze are about the same age,
It didn’t take long for both of them to get comfortable with each other, and this even make Adhara surprised since Ryze didn’t look shy or stiff anymore.
Zelene dragged Ryze left and right seeing the stores around them,
“They got close faster than expected, even Ryze is having fun. I think it’s because of Zelene’s positive energy, she’s really outgoing”, Adhara mumbles from the side.
Hearing this, Edward also smiles, “You’re right, maybe they both need each other”
“So… I saw a new car model in that direction…”, Edward suddenly said while looking at Adhara with a meaningful look.
This makes Adhara squints her eyes, “And…?”
“Daniel Burton should give you a bit of money and Rex hasn’t replaced my car yet, I was wondering if you know… you could-“
Before Edward can even finish, “No way!”, Adhara replied with a chuckle.
This makes Edward’s shoulders slouches as he was hurt by Adhara’s decisive answer, “But you’re Rex’s girl, so his debt is also your debt!”
“Look at you, just moments ago you almost died and now you’re stressing over a car?”
But Edward crosses his arms in front of him as he puts on his wise expression, he then said, “An Awakened’s life is always on the line every single day, it’s not that surprising anymore”
“And because of that, we have to live to its fullest!”
“So can you please…”
Hearing this, Adhara chuckles as she looks at Zelene and Ryze looking around not far from them, “The answer is still no, you’re going to ask Rex for that. I also gave a huge part of the money from Daniel to Rex, so I can’t buy that”
This makes Edward dejected as he reluctantly erases his expectation of getting a new car.
With that, the four of them spent their time in the mall forgetting a moment of what matters in their lives before the night finally came as they all went back.
But this time, Adhara can see that Ryze’s mood is a little bit better.
A couple of days later,
Adhara is inside the training ground with Edward.
Edward is sitting by the side while inspecting Adhara in front of him,
Since they spent an entire day refreshing their minds and also Zelene and Ryze’s minds, they feel guilty and thus intend to get back to training to make up for that time.
Swoosh!
Adhara is holding the daggers that Rex gave as she imbued the daggers with her fire mana, but just like expected the fire mana becomes chaotic after the runes on the right dagger lit up.
It was the same as last time, nothing has changed.
“Every time the rune on the right glows, the fire mana becomes chaotic and I can’t control it no matter how hard I tried. It’s like the dagger is rejecting it”, Adhara said with heavy breaths.
She then glances at Edward and asks, “How was it? Did you spot anything?”
Just a moment before, Adhara asks Edward to help her with this dagger problem that she had by inspecting her and the daggers’ reaction from the third point of view.
It might just give her some insight into the daggers,
Hearing this, Edward squints his eyes before he replied, “Can you do that one more time? I think I see something in a split second but I’m not quite sure”
Adhara did it one more time until the rune on the right dagger glowed,
Just at that moment, Edward looks at the rune on the right dagger closely before he saw a spark from the left rune destroying the interaction the right rune had with the fire mana.
Since Adhara is the one that focuses the fire mana,
She didn’t feel anything since the chaotic fire mana occupied her body and mind, but Edward saw this interaction between the two runes clearly which makes him frown.
Edward then explains what he saw to Adhar,
“You imbued fire mana to the left dagger first before you did the same to the right dagger, go and try to reverse the process”, Edward suggested as Adhara stepped into the middle of the quiet room again to try what Edward said.
Adhara steadies her breathing before she started gathering fire mana,
This time, she imbued the right dagger first as the rune on the dagger glows, she finds that surprisingly the rune on the right dagger glows slowly without any mishaps.
But when she imbued fire mana on the left the same thing happened.
BOOM!
Cough! Cough!
Adhara coughs a couple of times as the fire mana becomes chaotic again,
She glance at Edward and find Edward looking at her in realization, he then said, “Just like I thought, the daggers can’t be used by your fire mana alone. It seems you need multiple energy to activate both daggers, one energy is not enough”
“What? Then how am I supposed to use these daggers?”, Adhara mutters dejectedly.
But Edward shakes his head as just from the scene that he saw earlier, it seems impossible to use the daggers only using fire mana alone, “You can use one of them for now”
“The other one can’t be used simultaneously, just ask Rex if he knew something to fix this”
With that out of the way, Adhara and Edward train in close-quarter combat for a couple of hours, but it’s mainly Adhara getting tutored by Edward.
A moment later,
Edward currently has his butt on the ground,
From the sweat covering his and Adhara’s body and the swirled mana around them, it seems they both have just finished sparring with each other but there’s a smug smile on Adhara’s face.
“That doesn’t count! Sneaking an attack doesn’t count!”, Edward shouted in annoyance.
Just like usual, Adhara asks for him to spar again but before he even gets ready Adhara already attacked him and put him in a difficult situation which allows Adhara to land a few solid blows.
Hearing this, Adhara grins, “You said everything is allowed in a fight”
“I did tell you that but we’re sparring, attacking like that is not allowed!”, Edward rebutted but only got replied with Adhara chuckling.
But their conversation was interrupted when Adhara’s phone rang,
Adhara went to her phone on the side before her eyes lit up when she saw her phone’s screen, she immediately answered the phone,
“Rex?! Where are you?”, Adhara asks excitedly.
The person that is calling her phone now is Rex, and she’s really happy that he finally called, “I’m in my room right now in a city near Eqosa City, the teleport formation in Eqosa City is broken so we’ll use the formation in this city. But I’m going to be back in a couple of days, I still need to get your spirit”
“Is everything okay? How’s the mission going?”, Adhara asks again.
Hearing this, Rex paused for a moment before he finally said, “The mission went smoothly and all that is left is to report back to the UWO before I’m done, aside from that I also got the newest member of the Silverstar pack”
“I’ll explain to you later when you guys meet”, Rex added.
After saying that, Rex intends to hang up after notifying Adhara but she suddenly stops him, “Is that all you’re going to say? Nothing else?”
“What do you mean? What else do I have to say?”, Rex asks in confusion.
But Adhara suddenly added, “How about Evelyn? Is there something you want to tell me?”
“E-Evelyn?! How did you… Nothing, I did nothing with Evelyn I swear!”, Rex swore as he was confused as to why Adhara is asking this, but he’s telling the truth since nothing happened.
He just got riled up by Evelyn a lot during this mission,
Before Adhara can reply, a woman’s voice suddenly intervenes, “Is it Adhara? Why are you whispering in the corner like that, you can just be comfortable around me”
“Hi Adhara, We’re doing well here you don’t need to worry!”
Edward is looking at Ryze and Zelene playing in the arcade, he then turns his head towards Adhara before he gasps when he saw Adhara’s expression contorted angrily.
She then said slowly, “Rex… Why is she in your room?”
“It’s actually Evelyn’s room. I’m going to get your spirit so I just put my bag in Evelyn’s room, the soonest I came back we’ll depart back to Ratmawati Ciy so I won’t be in this room that much”, Rex replied hurriedly.
Rex then added, “Alright, I’m going now!”
“Rex I swear to god if I find out something happened between-“, Adhara looks at her phone as she got cut off mid-sentence, she looks at the phone scoffing in disbelief.
Edward wanted to ask what happened but Adhara’s glare stopped him,
He already knows what Rex did just from her expression alone, ‘I know Rex hasn’t had any experience with women that much, but he’s really pissing Adhara off’, Edward thought wryly.
On the other side of the university, Kyran is not in his room as usual.
He’s currently walking along the hallway wearing a hoody jacket to cover his face, he just got off the phone as Adhara told him that Rex will be coming back in a couple of days.
This makes him sigh as he puts his phone in his pocket,
He then resumes his walk as he seems to be heading to a particular place on the floor just above Rex’s room floor, it’s clear that he did this a couple of times since he remembered the way.
Kyran unconsciously looks to his back a couple of times as if to make sure no one follows him,
After taking a turn, Kyran arrives at room number 417 which already has a woman standing in front of it which makes his eyes brighten up in a second.
The woman’s eyes also lit up when she saw Kyran approaching her,
“Lisa! Did you wait for long?”, Kyran asks while pulling down his hoody, his face is brimming brightly which if seen by Adhara or even Edward might surprise them.
Usually, Kyran is wearing his indifferent look, but now he’s smiling and all.
Lisa holds Kyran’s hands before she also smiles brightly, “No I didn’t, What are we going to do today?”, she asks playfully.
Hearing this, Kyran looks at her with a guilty look.
This makes Lisa raises her eyebrows questioningly before Kyran finally said, “Rex will be back in a bit, so I don’t think we can meet often after he’s back. I’m sorry…”
“Really? It’s fine…”, Lisa replied with a sigh.
But she then added, “Are you going to ask him about the orb? I don’t want to pressure you but can you please ask him? Please…”, Lisa puts on her puppy expression pleadingly.
Kyran scratches the back of his head before he can’t help but nod his head.
“Yeay! Thanks, Kyran!”, Lisa said cheerfully before she kiss Kyran’s cheek.
The sudden kiss caught Kyran off guard before Lisa with a chuckle pulls Kyran inside room 417, they both disappear into the room as the door closed once again.
Back to the training ground,
“Are you going back to your room?”, Adhara asks while walking beside Edward.
They both have just finished sparring as they walk alongside each other exiting the training ground,
Hearing this, Edward thought for a moment before he said with a complicated look, “Yes, I need to take care of Zelene since Rex will be coming back”
“Zelene? What’s wrong with her and Rex?”, Adhara asks curiously.
But this makes Edward sigh as he replied, “They don’t have a great relationship necessarily, so I don’t think Rex will be happy seeing Zelene here”
After bidding their goodbyes, both of them separated.
While walking back to the room, Adhara is still curious about Rex and Zelene’s relationship, ‘Bad relationship? Isn’t she Edward’s younger sister?’, she thought in confusion.
No matter how much she tries to think of a reason for their bad relationship,
Adhara can’t think of anything making her sigh dejectedly.
It didn’t take long for her to arrive that the room but she stopped when she saw a man and a woman standing in front of the room, “What are they doing here?”